I was just starting up Donkey Kong Country in wii mode and maybe my memory is hazy but noticed that its in the 4:1 format i could of sworn it filled almost the whole screen with the exceotion of mini black bars on the left and right.

might the update with the gamepad function have anything to do with that? and if so could it be changed?

Ya, there were complaints going both ways. I think it's better that it's how it's supposed to be now. There were a TON of complaints on the Wii when people figured out all their VC games were stretched on their 16:9 screens.

Like @atariboy said, if you want the stretched out "not how it's supposed to be", you'll have to tell your HDTV that it's SD.

I rather like 16:9 even though I know it's "not how it's supposed to be". The black bars are too distracting to me. Besides if we are going to be pure with the games then playing them on a Wii U on a wide screen tv with HDMI is "not how it's supposed to be". We should have the option.

Too be truthful my tv is a bit bright and the Wii U limitations as of now (something about full range - RGB) makes blacks very bright. Not sure how to explain it but the Wii doesn't do this. So the black bars are very bothersome. The Wi VC games looked very sharp even though it was streched. Nintendo should give us the option iff they can. Maybe we want to play some games in 16:9 and others in 4:3